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Robertson: Scots remain upbeat

Gordon Strachan’s men prepared for the match with a 1-0 victory in their friendly against Qatar at Easter Road on Friday.

Robertson reckons the fixture presented ideal preparation ahead of the trip to Dublin as several players were playing for the first time since the start of May.

He said: “Most of the boys that had finished early on, their season at the start of May, were just keen to get back out there.

“You can train as much as you want but there is no better feeling than a game, so it was good for them to get up to match fitness.

“Obviously, the boys who were on the bench would have loved to have got on but it wasn’t to be, and now we’ll look forward to this week’s training.

“We’ve got to build up that winning mentality. It doesn’t matter who we are playing against, Qatar were a good outfit.

“We always knew Qatar was just to get our fitness up. We were always looking forward to the big one on Saturday.

“We’ll meet back up on Monday and look forward to the week ahead and I’m sure it will build up and the country will get excited again.”

Scotland beat Ireland 1-0 at Celtic Park when the teams met in November with a late goal from Shaun Maloney.

Only two points separate the teams going into Saturday’s Group D encounter, with Scotland looking to open up a bigger gap between the nations and strengthen their claim for a place in the finals.

Robertson does not expect anything to be resolved as a result of next week’s match, but he believes it will be another tight affair.

“I don’t know what game will be the pivotal game. We just need to get as many points as we can and hopefully that’s enough for us,” he said.

“It will be a big game, don’t get me wrong. The Tartan Army will travel in great numbers and I’m sure it will be a packed crowd over there, but it will be a great occasion to be involved in and all the boys are just buzzing for it.

“I don’t expect anything different, it was more like a British cup tie that game. It was a great game to be involved in. Scotland fans turned out in their numbers at Parkhead, it was a sell-out, and they made some amount of noise. Hopefully they can do that again and get behind the team.

“But I don’t expect anything different, it will be played in the same manner, but hopefully we are the team nicking it again.“

Watch Republic of Ireland v Scotland live on Sky Sports 1 and 5 at 5pm on Saturday.